Pages

6 Apr 2015

A Message for Warhammer Fantasy Players

Greetings. This will not be like my other posts and will not halt progress on them. I simply felt the need to address the concerns of all Warhammer Fantasy players left confused and worried by the climax of End Times: Archaon. If you have yet to read that tome, avoid this post as it spoils the ending of the most significant background progression for a Games Workshop game system in decades.

With that said, I will make myself perfectly clear; I do not deal in rumours, hence why I hope what I am about to say should carry some measure of weight despite the fact that I am not considered a "reliable source". Here's the rub;

I have had discussions with multiple Games Workshop staff and all have universally stated that no model range in Warhammer Fantasy is being removed.

Simple logic will tell you why this is the case; plastic moulds are expensive to make and Games Workshop does not make their money back on them quickly. The armies everyone thinks will be removed, namely Dwarfs and Lizardmen, both had numerous plastic model releases in the past year and a half. It makes no business sense to suddenly pull these models before the company has had a chance to turn a profit on them.

Hell, apply that logic to the company as a whole; as a consumer-focused business, why would Games Workshop suddenly alienate a huge portion of their fan-base by invalidating their armies? The simple answer is that they will not do that, though what will most assuredly happen is that there will be new model ranges and existing ones will be updated. I don't know this for certain but I'd like to think the people I talked to are very trust-worthy and know what they are talking about.

As for those saying that the End Times series was a last-ditch cash-grab aimed at current Warhammer Fantasy players, understand that it was both a tool of change to help ease players into the new setting and also a send-off for the existing incarnation of the setting. It saw the return of some of the most important fan-favourite characters such as Nagash and Neferata, while newer entities such as the Glottkin and Skreech Verminking were given their own time to shine. This was organized and delivered as a love-letter to fans of the setting to try and provide both a fitting finale and to help ease them into the biggest shake-up to the game in ages.

If you are worried about your army being invalidated or your models becoming unusable in an official sense, don't be concerned. Games Workshop isn't as stupid as some of you believe, and while certain armies may not necessarily be updated with new rules or models, you will not have to replace them.

To the people propagating the fear-mongering and lies surrounding the rumoured destruction of the game as we know it, you disgust me. Enjoy the attention while it lasts.

4 comments:

I'm very excited to see where Warhammer goes. I started up a High Elf army around the time the Nagash book came out because I was choosing models from their range for Brotherhood of the Brush competitions. Khaine got me really excited for an All-Cavalry army, mixing around units from Dark Elves and Wood Elves. I'm only holding off on expanding it more because I want to see what the Core Rulebook contains, and try to aim for an army that fits the fluff.

I agree in that GW would not scrap entire armies. Doing so not only alienates a large portion of it's player-base, but would cost a fortune to create new armies to replace them. They will probably go with the strategy that they have been doing with 40k, in that they release a new rulebook for each army (updated to reflect the new world or after the End Times, along with protecting their IP), along with updated model kits for some of the units that they feel need them. I have a theory that a lot of the doom-saying about the company is just a perpetual state-of-thought that has been going on for several years (I was a part of it too when they made a lot of questionable choices on game design and releases). But since the End Times started, they have been knocking it out of the park: amazing models, no longer using resin and moving to all plastic, Harlequins, Skitarii, etc.

Thanks. I started a dwarf army last month. I would be quite sad to see it unplayable before I even finish painting. (I am new to warhammer, painting is hard). Why is it I can't get menu of the dwarf models. All my local hobby shops have tried to order me things like dwarf war machines, but they don't come in. One flame canon showed up, but it was a metal model and the box had no pictures.

The end times series got me back into fantasy. I originally had an undead army before I got into 40k, seeing the new Nagash model and reading the end times Nagash book convinced me to start a new vampire counts army. I also see it unlikely that several armies will be removed from the game after all the effort and expense that some players have put into them.

Thanks. I started a dwarf army last month. I would be quite sad to see it unplayable before I even finish painting. (I am new to warhammer, painting is hard). Why is it I can't get menu of the dwarf models. All my local hobby shops have tried to order me things like dwarf war machines, but they don't come in. One flame canon showed up, but it was a metal model and the box had no pictures.